GPS Denied Environment with VIO

[Karl_Wright]

Hello,

I have a Flight Deck controlling motors through the ModalAI ESC (v2). The drone is updated with firmware v1.11.3-0.0.5 and has parameters loaded from this repository as follows:

platforms --> v1.11 --> m500_4s_config

helpers --> m500 --> collision_prevention, ekf2_indoor_vio, and enable_uart_esc

I am able to actuate the motors through voxl-px4-shell, but cannot arm the drone because of a GPS error.

My goal is to get the drone flying indoors with VIO position mode.

Is there a way to diagnose the GPS error to determine the source of the problem?

Here's the output from nsh> gps status.

INFO [gps] Main GPS
INFO [gps] protocol: UBX
INFO [gps] status: OK, port: /dev/ttyS0, baudrate: 115200
INFO [gps] sat info: disabled
INFO [gps] rate position: 5.00 Hz
INFO [gps] rate velocity: 5.00 Hz
INFO [gps] rate publication: 5.00 Hz
INFO [gps] rate RTCM injection: 0.00 Hz
vehicle_gps_position_s
timestamp: 37432344 (0.001194 seconds ago)
time_utc_usec: 0
lat: 0
lon: 0
alt: -17000
alt_ellipsoid: 0
s_variance_m_s: 33.4660
c_variance_rad: 3.1416
eph: 4294967.5000
epv: 3750018.5000
hdop: 99.9900
vdop: 99.9900
noise_per_ms: 104
jamming_indicator: 33
vel_m_s: 0.0000
vel_n_m_s: 0.0000
vel_e_m_s: 0.0000
vel_d_m_s: 0.0000
cog_rad: 0.0000
timestamp_time_relative: 0
heading: nan
heading_offset: 0.0000
fix_type: 0
vel_ned_valid: False
satellites_used: 0

Thanks in advance!

Karl

[mohammednaveed]

Dear @Karl_Wright
After powering on your drone go to mavlink inspector and check at odometry tab whether X and Y data is non zero. if it's non zero then VIO is working.
Please refer to this document

Regards,
Mohammed Naveed

[Karl_Wright]

Hi @mohammednaveed, thanks for your response! The VIO is working properly and sends data to the mavlink inspector.

The main issue I'm having is that the drone won't arm because of a gps error. Other than that, everything else seems to be working correctly. Any advice on troubleshooting the gps error would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Karl

[Gordon8]

@Karl_Wright

You have:
helpers --> m500 --> collision_prevention, ekf2_indoor_vio, and enable_uart_esc

Try adding in:
sensors_disable_gps_mag.params

"Turns off GPS and barometer. Use this is you have no gps/mag attached or have a gps/mag attached and just want them disabled in software. Use this with ekf2_indoor_vio.params
This is not included with ekf2_indoo_vio.params since you may still want these sensors enabled for logging even when not using in EKF2."

[Karl_Wright]

Hello @Gordon8,

Thanks so much for your advice. I reset all the parameters in QGC and reloaded ekf2_indoor_vio and sensors_disable_gps_mag.

I am unfortunately still running into the same issue as before. Arming is denied because of a generic gps error. I have disabled gps and edited other parameters that are supposed to allow arming without gps.

Thanks again @Gordon8 for your response, I'm open to trying any other suggestions that you or others may have.

Karl

[Karl_Wright]

After much more time trying to troubleshoot this issue, I am still unable to arm my drone. QGC shows that everything is operating correctly except that there are failures for GPS and Pre-Arm Check. Does anyone else have any suggestions on other procedures I could try? My current software setup is the same that I have described above.

Thanks!

[Chad Sweet]

How did you update your firmware? Did you use a ModalAI image or QGC?

Check out https://docs.modalai.com/flight-core-firmware/ and try starting with the latest on that page.

[Karl_Wright]

@Chad-Sweet Thanks for your reply.

I am currently running firmware FCv1 - v1.11.3-0.2.3 from that link. I downloaded the image and then uploaded it through QGC as a custom firmware.

Thanks,

Karl